Second trespasser at Y-12 over weekend

After a bicyclist was detained and arrested on Saturday for cycling on Y-12 National Security Complex property, a protester was detained on Sunday for crossing the “blue line” boundary after a peace vigil.

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By Beverly Majors/Staff

Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

By Beverly Majors/Staff

Posted Mar. 7, 2013 at 7:40 PM
Updated Mar 7, 2013 at 7:41 PM

By Beverly Majors/Staff

Posted Mar. 7, 2013 at 7:40 PM
Updated Mar 7, 2013 at 7:41 PM

OAK RIDGE

After a bicyclist was detained and arrested on Saturday for cycling on Y-12 National Security Complex property, a protester was detained on Sunday for crossing the “blue line” boundary after a peace vigil.

On Sunday, officers detained 71-year-old Larry Coleman of Knoxville at the end of weekly peace vigil at the plant, according to The Associated Press. No charges were filed, but the attorney general’s office will be consulted.

“During the protest held Sunday afternoon at Y-12, an individual crossed onto federal property on Bear Creek Road near the plant’s main entrance on Scarboro Road,” National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Steven Wyatt said “The individual was detained by the Y-12 Protective Force and was subsequently turned over to the Oak Ridge Police Department.”

According to the AP, Coleman, a veteran protester at the plant, said he inadvertently stepped across the “blue line,” which marks the boundary, as he read signs posted at the plant entrance.

While activists have intentionally provoked arrests in the past and gone to jail in protest of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, Coleman said that wasn’t what happened Sunday.

“We created an incident without wanting to,” Coleman said.

On Saturday, Oak Ridge police officers charged 39-year-old Brent Lee, of 110 Normandy Road, Oak Ridge, with criminal trespassing after he reportedly was found riding his bicycle on Y-12’s North Patrol Road.

Y-12 canine officers, performing a routine patrol of the area, detained him and later turned him over to ORPD. He was released from custody on a misdemeanor citation.

Lee was found on the North Patrol Road, which is on Y-12 property directly adjacent to a fence that represents the official boundary — frequently called the “229 Boundary”— for the 810-acre federal property, and is clearly marked for no trespassing.

“The fence is not considered a security fence and is intended to serve as visible demarcation for the federal property line,” the NNSA said in a Saturday news release. The North Patrol Road, which is located away from the main production areas of Y-12, is frequently patrolled by the Y-12 security police officers and canine patrols. Canine patrols are extensively used at Y-12 as a part of the overall security strategy for the plant.

The North Patrol Road can be accessed from Oak Ridge Turnpike near Southwood subdivision and from South Illinois Avenue near Scarboro Road. The road runs along the ridge behind the Scarboro neighborhood and farther west, the Country Club Estates neighborhood.

The road was crossed last July by three anti-nuclear protesters who were later charged with federal crimes. The trio of anti-nuclear activists, 82-year-old Megan Rice, a nun from Las Vegas; 57-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed of Duluth, Minn., and 63-year-old Michael Walli of Washington, D.C., reportedly breached the security fences at Y-12 and vandalized a wall at the Highly-Enriched Uranium Manufacturing Facility (HEUMF). Their trial is set for May and they could face a possible federal prison sentence.